


See Me

by TheEarlyKat



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age - Various Authors, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Rhys, Post White Spire, Pre-Haven, The White Spire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:25:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEarlyKat/pseuds/TheEarlyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Cole found his way to Haven</p>
            </blockquote>





	See Me

The knife was still in his hands.

A trail led from the White Spire in the middle of the city, heavy drops of vibrant red on the dusty stones of the winding streets leading away from the Circle with each step, growing stronger from a nauseous lurch to a curt stride. The Templars would follow it with whatever remaining phylacteries they had in hand, thinking it the work of a mage. Let them come – let them try. Cole would not let them see, not now that they _wanted_ to see him. He would find that oily, slippery part of him, deep in the corners he’d forgotten about since the Fade, and let it come, unafraid, and help him hide. 

He rubbed his thumb along the flat of his dagger. 

The blood was crusty on the hilt and made his hand itched where it dried and flaked in the lines of his knuckles but it was still warm. Hot and sticky with the memory of the Lord Seeker’s lifeblood seeping through his fingers as he drove the blade home, eyes wide and _seeing_ , for the first time, the injustices he’d committed; warm with the relief that he would be safe, that Rhys and Commander and Red would be safe. 

Rhys…

He wished he could have helped the old woman, Wynne, he reminded myself. He hadn’t understood until it was too late and then she was cold, but smiling, and Commander was coughing into Rhys’ shoulder as he picked her up from the ground to hold her close. It had been too quick. It had felt too familiar – the transition – to think it dangerous. It felt like being seen. 

Cole shivered and hoped it was the dropping temperatures that made him wrap his arms around himself. 

Rhys would know what to do, now. He always knew what to do. He helped when we wasn’t seen, when no one believed, he helped when he was lost and alone in the depths of the Spire, and when the Templars pointed their fingers. He would have helped now but…Cole shook his head. He couldn’t involve Rhys in this, not after the Conclave. He would have to make his decisions now, and his first was to leave Val Royeaux. 

East had been his first thought. West held nothing but sand and blood, and Cole tucked his chin against his chest, his arms tightening around his torso as he remembered Adamant. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut tight, but between the swirls of blacks and blues were walls of red. East it had to have been, up the mountains, across the Frostbacks, to find…something. Anything. 

The Spire wouldn’t forget him know, he knew. His name might be forgotten, erased from Captain’s journey in the dungeons as easily from her memory. The sudden deaths would go unchecked, piled under the dust of the collapse. He would be changed, no longer the ghost in the Pit, but his new title would be forever written in the history and the stone of the White Spire: the Lord Seeker’s killer. 

_Let them come_ , Cole repeated to himself, and he wrapped his arms tighter around himself. 

The cold passed through him like the eyes of deer and bears as he wandered the passes and hunting trails that wound through the Frostbacks. The wind threatened to tear his ragged tunic from his shoulders but did little to freeze him. It snowed and though it hindered his steps, slowed his march to an awkward lurch, his toes remained warm in his boots, his skin pale despite the dampness of his pants and the flakes that settled in his hair. He didn’t grow tired nor hungry until the sun woke him one morning to the wide valleys and towering trees of the Hinterlands beneath him. Cole sat up and leaned against the slab of stone he’d used for shelter in the night, and watched the shades of grey turn to hues of green and orange, unsure of what to do. How far was he supposed to walk? Where was he to go? Cole thought of Rhys again and shoved the idea of the man away. He was trying to help, and the only way to do that was to stay away. 

He was supposed to help, made to help, but who would he help now? 

His dreams answered. 

There were voices, faint and small, but scared and desperate. Fire took from them what they had tried their best to rebuild, a threat worse than the brimming war pounding at the gates. Cole tried to see the fire in the distance, hand raised to his forehead against the sun in the morning, but he was still too far to hear them, to make out anything but their cries. He followed the sounds like they were its own path between the man-made trails and the worn tracks prey animals followed every season. He descended the mountain, climbed back up them, searched caves and crossed rivers trying to find it. 

There were others in the Frostbacks, but they weren’t the ones calling. He trailed after them, hoping they knew of the cries. More would gather sometimes, and he listened to their conversations in the nights, sitting by their fires and their tents, unseen. 

A war. A demon. A Blight.

_I’m coming, I’m coming._

And he followed them to a camp. The walls were wooden, not the stone he’d seen in his dreams. The people here were not the frightened soldiers trapped inside, but metal-clad warriors, and Cole’s eyes widened as he passed through their ranks. Swords of Mercy were still carved into the plate, etched too deep to be polished away or still boldly worn by some. The man walked around him as if passing over a stone, forgotten the moment the obstacle was passed, but it was enough to leave him on edge. 

Whispers of war were on all their lips, some smiling, others frowning, but all twitching with the same nervous excitement. It sent shivers down his spine, and Cole promised himself he wouldn’t stay long, just enough to get a direction of where he should go. 

He didn’t have to wait long. The army was ready for a fight and the name ‘Haven’ was on everyone’s lips. Fereldan wasn’t an area he was accustomed to, but there were few towns in the Frostbacks to be confused. The smoke that rose from the walls had him hopeful, and Cole ran the rest of the way down the mountain, uncaring for the darkness that tripped him over rocks hidden in the shadows and roots in the snow. 

“People are coming!” he shouted, nearly running into the gates. The darkness he kept inside around the Templars was gone and the made sure his fists could be heard through the heavy bars of the doors. “You…probably already know that,” he added, more to himself than anyone on the other side of the walls. “The Templars come to kill you!”

The gates opened, and Haven burned.


End file.
